More Awesome Than You!

I never posted a topic in here, I'm sorry if this is in wrong section.

It have been a while (years) since the last time I played Sims2. Regarding to the failure and cutesy-dandy of Sims 3 which makes me palmed myself every time I heard the wish completed music, I reinstalled all Sims2 EP/SP again today. So, my question is, are there any of the MUST have mods for Sims 2? For example, Sims 3 needs Awesomemod to run without any borkedness. What about Sims 2? I'm sorry because I never found MATY before Apartment Life is released so I don't know about those important mods. Tried some searching, but there are hell a lot of mods out there... Did Pescado made Awesomemod for Sims 2 too?

Pescado's Director's Cut in the Armory is a must.  There are also lots of great hacks by TwoJeffs on Simbology and by Inge on Simlogical.

Very strictly, there are only a handful of fixes in the Director's Cut that are necessary to prevent game-breaking bugs; the rest is flavor. However, there are so many very annoying, nonsensical, or plain limited things in the game it's worth hunting down mods that improve anything that doesn't satisfy you. The Director's Cut is packed with useful mods, and if you just want to grab and play and not have to concern yourself with possible conflicts, you'll have a much improved game experience with a selection of mods from that.

However, if you're a picky jerk like me and want to tweak the game to within an inch of its life, you have a ton of options. Like Jeebus said, Simbology and Simlogical have some great mods. TwoJeffs has a lot of mods improving how the game treats same-sex relationships; he also has the famous Autonomous Casual Romance, which allows your sims to act on their gender preferences and attractions on their own. Simlogical has mods to give your sims more schooling options for their children, a prison mod, and various controllers that do things like make it so your sims can only serve meals in certain places during certain times of day.

There are quite a few modders on MTS; my favorite is MogHughson, who has made game enhancers like a manuscript sims from children on up can write novels with, a mod that allows pets to sleep on a bed with a sleeping child, and a mod that allows apartments and stores on the same lot.

Then there are the mods made by people who aren't really in the community anymore. They're very use at your own risk, but with some care and attention to keeping backups they can be used safely. Squinge and Monique at Insim and Paladin at SimsWardrobe are the modders I suggest looking for.

All of the options can be overwhelming, so I strongly suggest starting small and only adding one or two at a time, or staying with the Director's Cut for a while.

Thanks for all the suggestion! At last! I found the DC hacks description.. Phew!

Sometimes the movie Beefcake makes me palm myself.

I agree that after you put in the director's cut you really don't -need- anything but..

Check Peasantry here as well (the deadlier disease comes to mind , along with links to geneticized skins)

The old all in one npc is available from MTS ,updated to Apartment life.
Squinge has some mods that are updated and look up Ancient Highway for some other random bits.

Apart from hacks to gameplay, you should think about:

1. cleaned 'hood templates to stop the critturs et al appearing in every 'hood the first time you play (see Peasantry)
2. clean versions of the maxis 'hoods if you're going to restart (Peasantry - NB empty is much more radical than clean!)
3. default replacement skins (lots of options, but all better than maxis fugglies)
4. a camera mod that lets you get to the edges of the 'hood
5. plasticbox's lighting fix gets the sunlight the right way round  http://linna.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=325634
6. The CEP files, without much CC isn't recolourable and your CC won't load
7. extra lot sizes if you plan on building a lot (MTS2?)

If you want something to play apart from the Maxis 'hoods, you could try one of the complete user made 'hoods.  I've just DL'd the N099 project hood and am having great fun with it!  http://n99forumpaks.jfade.com/old.php?category=91   Mootilda is making a list and reviewing them here http://www.modthesims.info/journal.php?do=showjournal&j=718

Thanks! About the lighting fix, I've found Gunmod something.. looks promising!

aelflaed has a great set avaialble:  residential and community lots in several sizes with both grassy and desert terrain.  Here are the grassy residential, links for the others are in this thread:
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=251798


Not so much reviewing as making notes for my own benefit.  Still, I'm hoping that much of this will be helpful to other people.